


Anchors

by thelaughinghermit



Category: Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), The Flash (TV 2014), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:24:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelaughinghermit/pseuds/thelaughinghermit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The speedforce is a fickle, seductive thing, but it always provides for those who harness it's gifts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MathIsMagic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathIsMagic/gifts).



> Love stories between four generations of speedsters.   
> Please note that extra liberties have been taken with Jay and Joan because I've only ever seen them as background characters in Young Justice.   
> Kudos to mathismagic for an awesomely well written piece called Fixations. It kind of inspired this one.

It began as any other day for Jay. He woke with a cramp in his neck that made it hard to turn his head to the left. He rolled his neck anyway and staggered to his feet. Sleeping against the wall of the trench wrapped in his slicker always made him a bit grumpy and overtired.   
He slung his gun over his shoulder, opposite his slightly injured neck and made his way over to the artillery. He tucked his head into his good shoulder as he approached. Then he put his left hand over his left ear as he picked over the piles of spent shells. 

Once the other men had noticed him, he stuck him mug out with a grunt and half nod. Boiling hot coffee made with the water used to cool the artillery down between shots was dumped into his mug. He hoisted it up to eye level in thanks. After more nods from from the artillery crew he walked back to where his commander would be setting up to talk about the day's goals. He took a sip of the sludge and grimaced. They would probably be holding the line as they had done every day since he joined this godforsaken war. He leaned against a post by the table and closed his eyes as he took another sip. He thought about why he had enlisted and the people he left behind. 

He had been young, nineteen if he was a day. He had wanted to save people and make the world a better place. He snorted quietly, glad no one else had filed in to see him losing his mind. Now a battle hardened twenty two, part of him wished he still had that naive optimism. Another part was glad it was gone, thank you very much. Hopefully it would keep him out of further trouble. 

He rolled his neck again and downed the last of his bitter drink. After adjusting the position of his rifle, he found a more comfortable part of the post to lean on. His hand went to the oilskin covered notebook he kept in his breast pocket. He pulled loose the two pictures from the front of the little book. He smiled down at his parents; thumbed over the portrait that Joan had thrust into his hands while pressing a kiss to his cheek as he was boarding the train to leave. His smile turned soft as he looked at her blushing face. He heard foot steps and hastily pushed his prized possessions back into the safety of the oilskin wrapping. 

As his CO walked in, he snapped to a salute. The man waved him into a relaxed posture. Behind the man the rest of Jay's watch filed in. Everyone bore the same dull expression. Everyone was tired and jumpy and tired of being jumpy. Jay, for the most part, felt cramped. He had been a runner in high school and had kept up with it after he graduated. There was no space for anything like that out here. 

As the last stragglers filed in the officer's normally stern countenance turned downright grim. 

He began, 

"Men, we're moving out." 

This brought excited murmurs. Jay looked back and forth between his brothers in arms. This was more excitement than he had seen on their faces for months!

The sergeant held up his hand. It had a quick effect; everyone stopped taking and looked at him. 

"This will not be a pleasant outing. We are moving to retake the town factory."

Jay and the others had been here so long that they had forgotten the name of the place they were in. It was just 'the town.' The 'town factory' was a shadowy place in their collective psyche. Some said it was a munitions dump. Others said there were dangerous chemicals stored there. The storytellers among them wove tales of human experimentation. But no American had gone in and ever come back. 

"It wasn't as if any Americans had been sent," Jay thought to himself as the sergeant began to lay out their plan of attack. "Mostly just poor souls who had lost their way back and stumbled upon it."

The CO quickly and efficiently covered the necessary information. This was going to be a scouting mission. No one knew if the Germans had abandoned the factory or if they had moved further into its dark recesses. There was no official word on what was in the factory, or what it had originally made either. Jay felt that the sergeant was being purposely vague. 

He reasoned that it could be one of two things. One, it was nothing urgent and the stoic man did not feel that it dignified explaining. Two, it was something terrible and dangerous and the wise older man was trying to shelter them. It left Jay uneasy. 

They headed out the following morning in the early light. It was nice; there was dew on the grass and a hint of warmth. The humidity would be on the rise in the next few weeks. Jay could imagine the sweat and dampness clinging to him through the oilslicker. He pulled his inner jacket a little tighter and carried on. 

It took them an hour to reach the factory outskirts. The small group of 20 men took cover and began getting ready. Everyone rehydrated and checked their weapons. Jay sat quietly with his unloaded rifle in his lap draining his first canteen. Then a cold wind blew through the trees, sharp like a warning cry. Jay felt the cold take residence in his stomach. Something felt wrong. He didn't much believe in gut feelings but this one felt true and fierce. He went through the checks and safeties like an automaton. He felt blank, numb. The others chattered quietly, like songbirds in the fall. 

"Run you fools!" Jay wanted to shout, to call out like his avian namesake. But he couldn't. He would just have to be tough and wary and force this feeling down. 

Too soon, all too soon for Jay, the soldiers fell into step, getting ready for the attack on the base. 

 

It was too much. 

It was loud and chaotic. There were bangs and booms as various weapons discharged and chemicals exploded. It turned out that the speciality of that particular factory was highly volatile ones. They had to get out. The sergeant had a shiny burn running up his arm that was beginning to weep around the edges as he directed their movements from behind a stack of crates. Thankfully they were empty shipping crates and would not blow sky high if they were nicked with a bullet. Large sections of the warehouse were not as lucky in content and were already on fire. It was from one of these fiery areas that Jay rolled out of patting down the small fires on his jacket. His sergeant rolled his head towards him. 

"Garrick." He coughed. "Garrick, this can't go on. We're gonna have to destroy the rest of the warehouse so it doesn't stay in enemy hands."

"How sir?" Jay asked with a sinking feeling that he already knew. 

"We get back behind this line of crates and detonate a charge in the main storage area. That will set a chain reaction and destroy the rest of the building, or at least cripple it to the point of uselessness."

"Someone has to set the charge."

"We'll have to get everyone up here then send someone back down. If we-"

Jay had stopped listening. Something in his roiling gut settled, then clicked into place. He knew what he had to do. 

"Respectfully sir, I don't think that's the best way. The Germans will know we're up to something if we all pull back and then go back down. If you call a retreat, I'll head down in the confusion and set the charge."

"Are you sure, Garrick? If you have to detonate manually there could be trouble."

"I'm the fastest runner here. I can get down a level to the main storage area before the Fritz realize what's going on." He said with a watery grin and a confidence he didn't feel. 

The sergeant squeezed his shoulder with his good arm. "Do it then." 

As Jay turned palming a grenade, he saw the sergeant prep the flare gun to signal a retreat. Jay took a deep breath and let himself fly. 

He weaves past obstacles, jumps over debris and what could have bodies, and past his brothers. Some try to grab him but he deftly twists away. There was no time. 

He reaches the catwalk where he can see the storage level. There are empty crates here too, so he moves towards the center and works his way down. He's on a wooden scaffolding that is over the storage area and over the mixing vats on the level below that. He pulls the pin and throws, begins to run. 

His foot breaks through the scaffold and he watches it in slow motion. He can't recover and finds his other foot going through as well. He falls. He misses the storage area and falls past to the staging area for the mixing machines and their corresponding vats of multicolored sludge. He sees the explosion, feels the force of it drive him down faster. 

As he falls, he whispers "Please God, let me live."

He sinks.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jay's awake, but what happened to him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jay's story continues

Jay was floating. 

His whole body hurt down to every cell, but he was insulated in what felt like love and safety. It was his parents' love, love for Joan, love from the crowds as he crossed the finish line first. It was the safety of his bed at home, of being inside during a thunderstorm, of returning to the ground after flight. 

He wondered if this was God. 

"No. Not a god." A thousand voices whispered in unison, seeming slightly amused. "A friend and an ally."

Jay metaphorically shook his head. If he had control of his floating limbs he would have actually done it. "Where am I? What's happening?"

He wasn't afraid and he wasn't sure he should be. All he felt was curiosity and a tugging in his ribs under his heart. 

"You are healing." The voices whispered. "You have fallen."

"I do remember that." He said furrowing his mental brow. 

"You are safe now. You are welcome here." Jay sensed thousands of arms unfurling to embrace him. Part of Jay wanted to be held. He wanted to be taken into the fold. He reaches towards them. 

"But what about Joan?" A previously silent voice inside him murmured. "What about your parents?" 

Jay startled. He had forgotten. This wonderful warm place was making him forget and turning his head to cotton. 

"I can't." He thought towards the voices. "I just can't."

He got the impression that the voices were smiling. The arms moved away. 

"You are always welcome, Jaygarrick." The voices said, reminding Jay of the aunts and uncles he and his family visited at Christmas. "Go back to the place you are from, with our love and blessings."

They pulled away. Jay felt like he was falling from a plane, right before he pulled the chute. He opened his eyes and the chute deployed. 

His eyes stung, he coughed and tried to breathe. It didn't work. He was floating! In some chemical vat. He kicked to the surface and broke through to air. That first breath felt like the best he ever took. He grabbed the sides and hauled himself out and rolled away. 

He yelped, startled. He rolled a lot farther away than he thought he would! He lay on his back panting and took in his surroundings. 

Everything was charred and broken. Beams had given way and there were scorch marks on the concrete floors. He decided that landing in that vat was one of the luckiest things that had every happened to him. The sides of the container and the liquid inside had acted as a buffer against the shock waves from the explosion. Probably saved his life. He decided to lay there for while longer to get his bearings and regain his strength. 

He felt dizzy and lightheaded. Maybe he was feeling the after effects of the explosion after all. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe through it. A few moments later his stomach growled loudly. Jay chuckled through his nose and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. He was just hungry! Come to think of it, he had only nibbled at his breakfast that morning. He brought his knees and chest up and rolled to his side. 

"It can't be that late." He decided. " I couldn't have been in that tank too long without drowning." 

He crawled over to the wall and propped himself up. He was still damp from whatever chemicals he had been drenched in, but they didn't burn, nor was he showing signs of nerve gas exposure, so he figured they were harmless. He began feeling through his pockets. He found an old biscuit miraculously dry in one of the button pockets of his slicker. He nibbled on it as he went through the rest of his pockets. The notebook was still dry, which made him sigh with relief. 

The biscuit was gone quicker than Jay would have liked. He felt around for another but turned up on crumbs. He licked those off his fingers then let his head sag back against the wall with a ragged sigh. Steeling himself, he pressed his fingertips against the wall and pushed up. He swayed on his feet a moment then stood straight. He looked up, but he was still indoors and couldn't check the time based on the light outside. He shrugged, rolled his neck, and made his way up. 

As he pulled himself up to the ground floor storage area, he realized it was almost dark outside. In the dying light he could see that the whole building was charred and empty. He shook as he ran a hand through his hair to calm himself. 

"I have to get back." He told the silence. " I can't stay here." 

No one replied back. Those golden voices that he's sure he imagined do not make a sound. He shoulders his way through the crumbling doorway and runs. 

He means to take off at a light jog but he finds himself moving as if he were sprinting. The world blurs and he skids to a stop seconds later with the husk of the factory a dot in the distance. Jay looks at his hands and shakes. 

He finds that the shaking was from euphoria. He had always enjoyed running, but something was building in his chest, a bundle of giddiness and light that made him want to whoop with joy and jump. He had never felt anything like this before. It frightened him. 

After crouching down with his head below his shoulders to try to dispel the heady rush, he straightened and took off again. He was a little more prepared this time. He reached the outskirts of base in 30 seconds. The march to the factory had taken two hours. He walked the rest of the way into the base. He nodded here and there to those he knew, trying not to draw attention to himself. 

"Jay! Jay Garrick!"

Jay cringed. There went that plan. He turned to face the source of the noise as hit was hit with several bodies at once. Everyone was staring. 

The men he had left with this morning grabbed at him and asked things like

"Jay, is it really you?"

"Where have you been?"

"How did you get out? The whole building blew!"

"Must have run pretty fast to make it out alive, huh?"

There were also clamors of 

"Good to see you Jay!"

"Glad you're back!" 

All with accompanying touches, hair tousling, and punches to his shoulders. Everything was moving fast but Jay found that he could keep track of each individual movement and voice. His head was spinning, both from the attention and the rush of information. 

"Garrick."

The sergeant only needed to speak his name once for the crowd to part for him. 

"Report."

"Sir, I'm not feeling my best. Permission to sit down and report sir?

"Granted. Come with me."

Jay followed the older man as encouraging touches continued as he passed through the crowd. 

He was seated at the same table where the plan had been laid out the morning before last. A tin of C-rations were laid out before him and he dug in voraciously. As he lifted his head, just shy of licking the gravy up, he realized the sergeant was staring. 

He swallowed. "Sir?"

"Garrick, I haven't even finished lifting my hand from the table and you've already polished off that entire ration." His tone was bland and his face blank, like he couldn't believe what he had seen. True to his statement, his hand was still outstretched. Jay could see the bandages on the man's arm. He had the odd thought that he was glad the man had been seen to, even as he tried to decide what he could say in his own defense. 

The sergeant sighed and turned away, grabbing another tin to place in front of Jay. 

"Eat slowly this time."

Jay did his best. He moved with what felt like exaggerated slowness. From the approving look on the other man's face, this was a better speed. When he was done with the second plate, the sergeant nodded and said

"Now tell me what happened; and tell me the truth."

Jay took a deep breath to steel himself and began. He told the other about the fall, the light, the speed. He spoke about the voices but left out wanting to stay with them. 

When he finished the sergeant put his head in his hands and let out a long, tired sigh. 

"I believe you." He said from his hands. "I can't believe I'm saying it, but I do."

When he lifted his head, Jay was struck by how much older he looked. There were many more lines around his eyes than were there the previous morning. 

"So what do we do now, sir?" Jay ventured as the old sergeant rubbed his eyes. 

"Keep quiet about it. Use it to help where you can but I fear what will happen if brass finds out about this too soon. They'll probably throw more people in to try to get them superpowers."

Jay hadn't considered that. He wasn't sure why he felt so secure about his own person, but the brass testing him or using him to run dangerous missions didn't bother him. The idea of other people being forced to go through what he had experienced did. He felt certain that others would not survive even though he had. In his mind's eye he saw the golden light he associated with those voices. It seemed to be confirming his suspicions. 

All of these musings happened before the sergeant could blink. Jay nodded his head in agreement with the man's statement and watched him lean back thoughtfully. 

"Try not to die, Garrick. You'll be far more useful alive. I'll do my best to protect you, but you've got to help me protect everyone else."

The two quiet men shook hands on their agreement and spoke no more about the subject. 

 

A year later the war ended. There was fanfare and cheering and quiet sighs of relief. 

Jay was on a train back to his hometown. He hadn't been home since before his accident. He wondered how many other things had changed here. As he let his eyes glaze over while looking out the window, he felt the whole train jolt. He used his speed to avoid having his head hit, then threw the window open so he could see outside and check what was happening. 

As he craned his neck out the window he got a face full of smoke. He coughed and squinted his eyes. 

Great. The engine was on fire. He rolled his eyes an he came back into the train car. Everyone else had slowly realized that was going on and were just beginning to recover. Jay put the pie tin he used as a helmet to help with his disguise on his head and shot out the back of the car. Letting the train pull ahead of his for a few seconds, he raced up to the engine.

Cries of

"The Flash! Look it's the Flash!" Came from the train. 

He waved as he ran by, keeping his face hidden by the shadow of the helmet and a gentle blurring of his face. 

He reached the engine and grabbed the engineer just as more flames belched from the mechanisms. He quickly moved the man into the first car. A cheer went up from the former soldiers inside. 

"Uh..." Jay hedged. "Gotta run!"

He turned away and quickly left. It was still weird interacting with the people he helped. 

After looking over the damage and the still burning fire, he decided his first act should be to move the people to safety. So, he simply dislodged the hitch that kept the train cars to the engine compartment. As momentum slowed them, Jay turned to the problem at hand. After studying it a few seconds more he windmilled his hands to try to blow out the fire. When that made the fire bigger, he decided another method was in order. Since they had been traveling through the heartland and it was planting season there was plenty of dirt. So, he began to run and kick up dirt onto the engine block. 

Once the fire was out and there were no more embers, he ran in front of the engine compartment and slowed it to a stop. After tumbling it off the track to get it out of the way, he ran the three and a half miles back to where the passenger compartments had stopped. After grabbing the chains that should have held the compartments to the engine, he dragged everyone to the nearest depot.

"Glad to help!" He called waving as the men and women on the train waved and shouted to him. 

"Followed us home, eh Flash?"

"Good to see you'll be helping out here too!"

"I knew you were real!"

He waved another few agonizing seconds before running. He zipped around the depot and emerged at the back. He slid in again as everyone began to talk excitedly. 

"Did you see that?!" His seat mate called waving an arm at him. 

"Yeah I did! I get motion sick so I figured I'd move to the back so I didn't throw up on anyone if we got thrown around." He said sitting down. 

"Sucks you couldn't have had a window seat. Flash just ran up and freed us from the engine. It was on fire!"

"Wow, it was?" Jay exclaimed and let the other man prattle on about what just happened. 

They were evacuated from the train and moved to another that diverted from nearby. Jay rested his head on the back of the seat and close his eyes for the rest of his trip.

His seat mate, who was thoughtful if chatty, woke him up at his depot. He thanked the man, stretched, grabbed his pack and departed the train. He held his bag over his shoulder and looked around. After only a few moments, his saw his tall father, his hair more silver now than the ruddy color of his childhood. His dark haired mother stood with her arm around his father's waist scanning the crowd. He made his way towards them and he caught sight of brown haired Joan as she stepped out from behind them. Her hair was up and braided back in a bun. 

As she turned towards him and their eyes met he saw the golden light in his mind's eye and thought

"Oh there you are."

The symphony of voices hummed in agreement and Jay knew that he was home and he was whole, perhaps in a way he never had been before.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet the second Flash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part of the story is a little bit based on the CW's the Flash and background from Young Justice.

Many years, happy years, later Jay and Joan began to feel some tension in their marriage.  


It was not because of Jay's other identity. Far from it; Joan had known for many years. Jay's inability to keep his double life from her, even in the early days of their courting, was still spoken of by the hero community in raucous tones.  


Nor was it Jay's work as a scientist or Joan's work as a community organizer. Both loved and supported the other's work. Joan proofread all of Jay's work and Jay hung Joan's flyers on lamp posts or in the community center.  


No, it was nothing about them, it was the lack of others.  


They had decided early in their relationship to not have children. There were too many risks. No one else in the super community was having kids who had not been weird in the beginning. Jay had changed later in life which could has affected his genes in a strange way. Plus there was the nature of the change. Maybe if he had ended up super strong he wouldn't have thought any more of it, but speed was different. The child's age could be accelerated and offer an awful early death. The couple wasn't willing to risk it.  


So they had remained childless. Both knew it was for the better, but it still put strain on them. They shouldered it silently and faced it together.  


Then things changed.  


Jay had always been quiet about his activities after the war. He helped out in natural disasters and big, international 'coalition of superheroes' kind of events, but had no town that he specifically protected. So the news about the particle accelerator explosion and subsequent explosion of meta humans was enough to cause interest.  


He began hearing whispers about 'The Streak.' He considered it a terrible name. Later the figure coalesced into 'The Flash' which amused him to no end.  


Jay watched the other's career from afar. He was reluctant to interfere. The boy deserved to grow on his own. Joan took her own interest in him too. The ache in their hearts grew.  


After watching the new Flash close a vortex and hearing through the superpowered grapevine that the younger man had lost a friend in the fight, Jay concluded it was time to step in. Joan put an understanding hand on his shoulder and pulled him down for a kiss on the cheek. He grinned, kissed her fingers, and was off.  


He had figured out the the kid was using the old STAR Labs as a base. But what he didn't realize was that the kid had a team. The fact that a member of that team was a cop who was more that happy to point a gun at him and verbally threaten him was also a shock. Plus that Harrison Wells guy being alive. That was a kicker too.  


"Well, at least he isn't alone." Jay thought to himself as he put his hands up.  


Looking at the assembled group of people, he immediately ruled out the dead guy look-a-like and the cop as the new Flash. The cop wouldn't have bothered with a gun and the other was a bit shady looking. Plus it just didn't seem right.  


The rest of the shell shocked group consisted of five young adults, three women and two men. He didn't automatically rule any out, since the new speedster could very well be a lady with one of those fancy compression bra things Joanie wore when she went to Pilates.  


As the brown haired kid started to speak, it clicked. The golden light of the speedforce began to shoot from this boy's eyes and curl around his ears. It lit his fingertips an licked up his shins.  


"Ah," Jay interrupted "So you're the the new Flash."  


The room erupted.  


The gun was pointed with more force and demands for information; the redheaded woman put her hands up to her temples in shock; the other two women looked at each other with mouths open; the shorter black haired man threw his hands up and looked gleeful? The not-dead-guy-from-the-news stared with a blank face.  


But the sad eyed boy just dropped the hand pointing towards him and let his jaw drop in complete and utter shock.  


"How did you know?" Came the quiet whisper.  


Jay just tapped his silver helmet.  


"Trade secrets, kid. Ones I'm willing to show you."  


Jay hadn't meant for the last part to slip out. He really didn't. He had planned to come and make sure the younger wasn't in mourning and then go home. In retrospect this seemed a bit silly, but there you go.  


The brown haired kid dropped his other hand and took a step towards Jay.  


"Any others your willing to teach me?"  


This prompted another outburst from the rest of the group. Wells rolled his eyes, the cop lowered his gun and side eyed the kid, the three women began talking to each other like something out of DaVinci's last supper full of pointing and hands thrown in the air.  


The only one who had seemed excited threw his hands up again, this time in a gesture of possibly disgust saying  


"Are you kidding me, Barry? How do we know this isn't someone else Zoom sent threw the rifts?"  


Barry (apparently) said "Look, I know Cisco, but guys, the other Jay could only tell me what to do," here his face grew earnest, like a boy who might be convincing his parents to get a puppy "this one might be able to show me-"  


"Wait, now I'm confused," Jay said rubbing the side of his helmet. "Other Jay? Rifts?"  


Cisco gave him a pitying look. "Hoo boy. We've got a lot to discuss."  


An hour later, Jay had taken his helmet off and was wobbling it in circles on the table he was sitting at as he processed the information he had been given.  


"So let me get this straight." Here he rubbed his face, then put his hands out parallel to each other and perpendicular to the table. "There are other universes, similar but subtly different than ours. That guy," he pointed to Wells who huffed and crossed his arms, "the bad guy, and a younger version of me all came here through them?"  


"You forgot that this Dr. Wells' daughter is a prisoner of Zoom." The Latino kid, Cisco, said.  


"That too." Jay said. He huffed a laugh. "Well kid, you've already gotten yourself into some trouble, huh?"  


"You still haven't told us much about yourself." The cop said from the doorway he was leaning on with his arms crossed. He looked upset and wary. Barry, who Jay guessed the cop cared for, just looked excited.  


"Yes, Jay, tell us more about you."  


"Well," Jay said putting the helmet back on and resting his hands on his thighs, "not much to say. During World War Two, I fell into a vat of chemicals and this happened. I spent the rest of the war trying to stay low and do what I could to help. It's been about the same ever since. I'm a retired nuclear scientist. I had been working on-"  


"Repurposing hard water. Fascinating." Wells said finally speaking up. "Mine had a similar line of work, but that's what caused his accident." He shook his head. "Fascinating."  


"We should tell Jay." Caitlin the red headed doctor said. "Or," squinting her eyes in frustration "the other Jay."  


Barry looked at her with a sadness in his eyes that Jay couldn't place.  


"We don't know where he is, Caitlin." He said gently. "But that doesn't mean we won't try."  


"I'll help you look." Jay said standing up. "Two sets of eyes are better than one."  


"Yeah, okay" Barry said with a bright and hopeful look. He ran and came back with his suit on.  


"Cool outfit." Jay said speed walking around the younger man to take it in. Barry looked a bit abashed.  


"Well, it's, I mean Cisco made it"  


"He's got a good eye." Jay said, placing a hand on Barry's shoulder and smiling encouragingly. "Let's go." He said with a nod of the head towards the door. As he went, the cop, Joe, grabbed Barry's shoulder and asked quietly "Sure you want to do this, Bear?"  


Barry smiled and grasped the older man's hand. "I'm sure."  


The old cop nodded and let go. Jay pretended not to see. It had obviously been a private moment and had made the spot in his heart that he shared with Joan ache. This was obviously the young speedster's father figure, if not his biological father. Jay waited in the hallway. As the kid approached him with a grin, they took off.


End file.
